who has seen the wind
by wyndsong
Summary: hey, another chapter. who would have thought. please to be reviewing. i'll even let you read it first.
1. chapter the first

when i was a kid growing up, i never really hated mutants. i guess deep down inside i kinda wished i was one. i knew that many people hated them, hell one of the worst things to be called in the playground was "mutie freak", but i always kind of assumed that the powers made up for the prejudice. i thought they would be an extension of personality, a certain never-before-felt freedom in realizing the entire potential of your own being. boy, was i wrong.  
  
the first time my powers expressed themselves was the most terrifying moment of my life. i was about thirteen. me and a couple of friends had taken over a swingset at the local park and were rehashing kiddie times of who could jump off the highest. as i reached the peak of my swing's arc, the air rushing past my face, my friends laughter ringing in my ears, i felt as though i had never been more at ease in my life. the excitement of my upcoming daring leap making my blood run madly through my veins, i let go of the chains ... but never hit the ground. instead i felt like the wind itself was rushing through me, pushing and pulling in eddies and updrafts and powerful currents. i looked at the ground, then at my hands ... which were no longer there ... in fact none of my body was to be seen ... hell, i didnt even know how i could be seeing, since i apparently no longer had eyes. i was the wind and it frightened me. frightened me so badly that my heart lurched to a halt and my body suddenly reappeared. unfortunately we were nowhere near the ground.  
  
when i finally came to my friends were once again by my side. only instead of carefree laughter, there was fear in their eyes. and not just fear for me, but fear of me. that hurt. a lot. i had apparently disappeared and then reappeared in a matter of seconds, and my tumble from the heavens had resulted in a mild concussion and a badly bruised ribcage (landed on a rock, ouuuccchhh!). but i never saw those friends much after that. school became a place of awkward silences and oggling stares. my grades in some classes dropped drastically, apparently certain teachers couldnt accept my work anymore. that summer my father announced that we were moving. it wasnt because of me he said, but that he had gotten a better job offer in the states. the united states of america.  
  
so that was how i ended up in new york city. land of the freaks, where you couldnt possibly stand out. being from a small town in eastern ontario, new york city soon became the most hated place i had ever been to. there were no trails, central park was a natural joke, and at night the sky was never black, nor blue, but a freakish sort of hazy red-yellow. and the people, my god they were everywhere, like rats they were! i couldnt find a hole in the ground that hadnt previously or still was occupied by another person. i soon fell into something of a depression, which lifted only on our weekend trips to the countryside. saddened by my melancholy state, my parents decided to seek help. i was of the mind that nobody could help me, and was well on my way to "helping" myself.  
  
now let me be clear about one thing, i've never seriously considered suicide. as a young teen i played with the notion as most everybody does, for death at that age holds a dark mystery that few ever get close to, but to actually kill myself never crossed my mind. such an act would be blasphemy, treasonous, selfish and disgusting. it was not something i could ever do, or ever understand other people doing. part of me says that i've never been in a bad enough situation then, and i wont disagree. but suffice it to say that my parents biggest fear was entirely unfounded.  
  
what i was going to help myself with, though, were my powers. they had manifested themselves a couple more times after that first incident, harrowing, nasty experiences they all were. but it was also my release. when i was the wind no one could catch me. i was a song that could run free forever ... not to be corny, but i was an unchained melody. so i decided that i had to gain mastery over the wind. not an easy task to do.  
  
it began as a discovery process. i had to know exactly what i could do before i could get better at it. turns out i really do become the wind. i can control air currents when i am in the windy state, as well as carry scents and sounds great distances, without them dissipating. 


	2. part deux

wow, a second chapter! hey, i might even finish this story!  
  
disclaimer: i own my guitar ... no wait that's my dads ... i own the x-men ... no wait they belong to marvel ... i own my character. so there.  
  
I was walking home from school, quietly making my fingers become wind and then flesh again, when i bumped into someone. that someone turned out to be quite large, and rather menacing.  
  
he must have been watching me for some time, because as soon as i bumped into him, he cried "mutant scum!" and gave me a shove into the ditch. Well, suitably pissed off, i started screeching   
  
at him, saying things like "what the fuck do you think youre doing, asshole?!" and "cant you see i'm walkin here!!" but he just growled some more and continued to point and shout "mutie!"  
  
really unsure about the proper proceedings for encounters like this, and getting more and more frightened as the man went on, i started walking home again, quickly. he began to follow. then   
  
other people started following, shouting anti-mutant slogans. i dont know where these people came from, but they all looked similar in their shirts which had the same "F.O.H." letters on them.  
  
okay, now i was just about shitting bricks, as a news reel suddenly jumped to the front of my mind. this story had been about a teenaged boy beated to death not three miles from his house. the  
  
lead suspects were a group of radicals calling themselves the "friends of humanity" ... F. O. H. ... oh shit, was i in for it now.  
  
so, finally cracking i broke into a run. i know i know, you're thinking "what the hell is wrong with you, just turn into the wind and fly away!" but its one of those things, like trying to  
  
take a leak when youre swimming in a lake ... you know you can, there's no penalty, but all that training you had about not peeing in pools and bathtubs come back and its impossible. well, its the   
  
same thing, i'd never used my powers in public before (except for that first time) and i couldnt conceive doing it now. so instead i just started booting it like my life depended on it ... which it  
  
probably did. it was then that the air started crackling with electricity, and the once clear sky became dark and cloudy. my persuers stopped and looked up. there in the sky was a woman dressed in  
  
a skimpy white skin tight suit, hanging there, in the air, with the winds and rains supporting her. well, i took my chance and ran into an alley, making myself small and invisible behind a large  
  
dumpster.  
  
the next thing i knew, there was a whole crew of freaks in spandex kicking the foh guy's ass. there was a guy who shot laserbeams from his eyes, a chick who didnt seem to do much, but people  
  
fell before her, clutching their heads, a hairy man with blue fur, and another with footlong claws comin from the backs of his hands. there was another gorgeous woman with a skunk stripe in her hair  
  
flyin around and beatin on people like nothing could hurt her, and others, who i didnt get a good look at. when the mutant haters were subdued, the man with the laser eyes turned to the head chick and   
  
asked "where's that girl they were after". she then closed her eyes and all of a sudden i felt this ... uh ... sorta tickle ... on my mind and i knew that it was from her. well, i freaked and started   
  
running again. she started telling me (in my head!) that they werent gonna hurt me and that they called themselves the x-men, but i'd had just about enough of freaky stuff for one day, and since i was in  
  
the alley and no one could see me, i just turned into wind and blew away. there was a brief struggle as the windrider tried to control me, but i guess i slipped her grasp cause pretty soon i was landing  
  
in front of my house, none the worse for wear, despite my harrowing experience. 


	3. not once, not twice, but thrice

So wow. I totally forgot I even wrote this. Huh. Must have been a year ago or more … ah well, its here now.

Disclaimer – I own a crappy-ass bed I bought from some mexican exchange student, my computer, and my character. I do not own the X-men. I also own your soul…, but lets keep that hush hush.

So that's where I am today … well, not in front of my house right now, but inside it. I've just graduated from high school and my parents are bitching at me to go to college, which I don't really have a problem with, I do want to go to college, its just, well, seems like I could be doing a whole lot more with my life than wasting four years to get a piece of paper, see?

Okay so maybe you don't see, I'll explain. After my run-in with the F.O.H. I've been kinda keeping tabs on the situation, y'know, making sure I know where mutants stand on the political scale, and its beginning to get a trifle disturbing. The mayor of New York has been rattling on about going to Washington to try to pass his "mutant registration act" which basically would mean that all mutants would be identified and that information would become public knowledge. And that's not necessarily a horrible thing, its just mutants haven't been getting along very well with the general public for the past few months, in fact assaults on mutants have tripled and homicides where the victim was a mutant are neck and neck with those due to gang-related incidents. There are also so-called mutant freedom fighters, bands of rogue mutants who try to stop these crimes … or … how shall I put this … make 'pre-emptive' strikes against would-be assailants. I've even heard rumors that there are mutants living in the sewers, calling themselves 'Morlocks'(y'know like in that book by H.G. Wells?) claiming that they will remain there till humanity accepts their ways.

What's this got to do with me, you might be asking, I look normal and have pretty good control over my powers, so anyone finding out I'm a mutant is very low on the probability scale, barring a blood test. Except, I feel a certain kinship with those mutants who are visible and are in danger from prejudiced jerks and I'm thinkin maybe its time I looked up these so-called 'X-men'.

Oh, that's right I forgot to mention, during my 'tab-keeping' I ran across a few articles involving the xmen. Mostly they seem to fight for equality and peace between mutants and humans and appear to be led by the one who shoots laser beams out of his eyes. But the more I read these articles, the more I think that maybe they're a lot more organized than the press seems to think. I've also come across reference to a special school, a school called the Xavier Institute. This is apparently a school for 'gifted' youngsters, but I wonder what they mean by 'gifted' exactly.

I'll admit I might be pulling at straws here, my proof would never hold up in court, but I am pretty smart, and my intuition rarely fails me. Suffice it to say I think that the x-men have something to do with this Xavier Institute. And I'm going to find out what.

Step one … gather information.

I've convinced my dad to let me take the car and go for a picnic out in the country with a couple of friends from school … and it just so happens I have the perfect place in mind. It's a park thoughtfully located in Salem Center, New York … also the home of the mysterious Xavier Institute. Maybe I'll just drive by on my way there … heh, heh, heh.

Okay, Its definitely big, and most likely a school. Nothing all that exciting to note, although it does appear to be fairly secure given that it is just a school. It might just be time to take this investigation up a notch.

Step two … infiltration

Who said being a mutant didn't have its upside? Hell, if I weren't such a god-awfully moral person I could be one of the greatest thieves this world has ever known … to bad my parents got jiminy cricket installed before I had a chance to decide. So here's my plan. Turn into the wind and make a fly-through of the building. Yes, I am still aware of my surroundings when I'm in the windy state (don't ask me how sensory information is gathered with all my sense organs transformed into a gentle breeze, but it is). Plus with all the practicing I've been doing for the past five years, I've gotten quite good at slowing down, speeding up and all sorts of maneuvering while windy.

… shit, it's a long way to the school from my house, even if I can travel up to about 50 miles an hour … I think I could go faster, but it gets really destructive at 50 … I don't want to see what happens at a hundred. Well, this is great, get all the way here to be absolutely exhausted for my spying game. Dammit. Well, no rest for the wicked, might as well get this over with.

… well, there are a lot of kids here, although some of them are definitely mutants it's impossible to say that all of them are, nor is there anything all that weird. Could just be a private school that accepts mutants.

… hello, what's this? Big steel door? Huge lock? AIRTIGHT? Son of a Bitch! Oh wait wait wait … I see some ventilation pipes … ah, there we go … there's always a way for air to get in and out of a room. HAH! LOSERS!

… woah … this is weird … looks like a big steel room, there's nothing in it. Why lock up an empty room? Hang on! What's that? Exercise equipment just appeared. Yeah, appeared, outta thin air. What am I, on the freakin holodeck? SHIT SHIT SHIT! People just showed up, and a breeze in a steel room is a wee bit suspicious. And what's that guy doing? Sniffing? Can he smell me? Do I even have an odor?

… CRAP! I guess I do! He just hit some sort of alarm! Run for it! … uh … I mean let's BLOW this joint! Hah, I crack me up! uh oh … this is bad, real bad, I just got this tickle in my mind … its getting stronger … its … its … AH! FUCK! GET OUTTA MY MIND! JEEZ! DAMMIT! GAAAAAA! thud

Step three … explanations.

Oh dear woman, how are you gonna talk your way outta this one? So let me catch you up to speed, bout five minutes ago I began to wake up … slowly and painfully (still have a bitch of a headache) … and have come to the conclusion that I'm in some sort of infirmary, most likely still in the school (I doubt I've been out long enough to make it anywhere else). And, now, just as I'm coming finally to my senses some people (a bald man in a wheelchair, dude with sunglasses(kinda hot), gorgeous chick with red hair, and my muscle-bound, hairy bastard of a sniffer from the gym … steel room … whatever the fuck it was) walked into the room. Hmmm, they look like they want some answers.


	4. quattro pro

Thankee-sai to all who reviewed. You make me happy. You're in luck. I found a fourth chapter. I should really clean out my documents more often. Here it is.

Disclaimer – me no own x-men.

From the desk of Charles Xavier

Our young intruder was apprehended naught but a few moments ago. Logan has informed me that he smelled a presence in the Danger Room and then hit the alarm as a great wind blew past his face. Subsequently I detected the presence of a mind moving quickly through the halls and did my best to halt it. Unfortunately the girl struggled valiantly against me, and probably gave herself quite the headache for it.

She was found in the hallways leading to the lower levels. No one knows how she got there, nor is there any indication of an intruder in the security tapes. She's young, as I've said before, perhaps 18 or 19. Shoulder length, brown hair, average build, maybe 5'8", 5'9". She's quite pretty (Gambit got a look at her as we were transporting her to the infirmary gave a low whistle … much to Rogue's chagrin) and so far has yet to awaken. Speak of the devil, here she comes now.

'Good day, I'm Professor Charles Xavier' said baldy.

'I KNEW it!' I exclaimed (okay, not my best tactical move but hey …)

'Knew what exaclty?' asked Xavier.

'That you had something to do with the X-men!' I once again gave my secrets to a strangers … definitely not cut out for interrogations.

'What do you know about the x-men girly?' said the furry dude.

'Uh … well, just what I read in the newspapers … oh I and saw you once, actually, you guys probably saved my life that day …' I kinda trail off at the end.

Redhead seems to have some sort of insight because she then exclaims 'oh!'

'what?' asks shades.

'you were running from the FOH that day, werent you?' she directs her question at me 'that was what? Three, four months ago?'

'something like that' I answer. 'after that I just started keeping an eye out for stuff about mutants, and eventually figured out that this place had something to do with the x-men.'

'Eventually figured out my ass' snorted hairy

'fuck you man'I said 'just cause you're a moron doesn't mean everyone else is too'

ookay … that was probably a bit of a mistake. Damn me and my big mouth. Well hairy was definitely pissed off, and red looked a wee bit shocked, but shades seemed oddly enough to be smirking and the 'professor's face was decidedly controlled to show no emotion at all.

'well, yes' said the professor 'now that you're here, there is still the question of what to do with you'

At this I blushed a bright red and mumbled a bit under my breath. Apparently hairy has extra-sensitives ears as well as his sniffer, cause he was the only one who actually heard me.

'you want to join the x-men!' hairball exclaimed loudly and with as much contempt as possible

man … now I was close to tears, this was sooo humiliating.

'well, not right away' I managed to stammer out 'I thought maybe I could just find out more about your school and stuff and … uh … I dunno, I just wanted to see other people with powers who werent afraid to use them and talk to others like me without getting the shit kicked out of me for trying and …'

by this time I actually was crying … well sniffling, with tears running down my cheeks, oh fine, I WAS crying … jeez, just trying to preserve some dignity. But at least hairy was looking mollified, and red sat down on the side of my bed to give me a comforting hug.

'oh sweetie' she said 'I know its been hard for you, and you're welcome here anytime for as long as you want'

'really?'I was looking pretty astonished 'but I don't have money for tuition and shit (I really didn't, my parents wanted me to go to college, but I was supposed to pay my own way)'

'that's not required' said the professor smiling gently 'we accept anyone at our school and teach them how to control their powers. There are no fees, we work to bring peace between mutants and normal humans.'

'it hasn't really been working so far'I said in a low voice

'don't matter'said scruffy 'it will one day' he added with a meaningful look at the professor.

Not really getting that particular exchange, I was ready to go home and think this whole thing over …not to mention there was going to be some big discussions going on between me and my parents that I had to be prepared for. They still didn't know I was a mutant (although I'd always thought my mom had an inkling) and it was time I told them the truth. But as I went to get up out of the bed, a certain nauseating feeling of dizziness and my pounding headache returned to me and I thought maybe standing upright wasn't such a good idea after all.

'woah there girly,'said hairy, as he caught my shoulders 'maybe you should just stay lying down for a bit more'

'in fact,'said red 'you should probably stay the night. A head to head with a telepath like you had doesn't usually leave both parties unscathed'

'that means yer gonna be hurtin a while' explained hairball.

'right'I sighed 'but I have to call my parents'

'I'll bring you the phone' said shades, and he left the room.

'in the meantime, allow me to introduce my xmen … unless you already know their names?' said professor, with a ghost of a smile

'nope'I said with a grin 'guess I aint figured that much out yet after all', looking apologetically at the hairy one. He nodded in recognition. The professor continued

'the one who left for the phone is Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops, he was my first pupil

the young woman sitting beside you is Jean Grey, also known as the phoenix and the 'hairy one'as you've been thinking of him (I jumped a little at that) is logan, known also as wolverine.'

'you're the spook who gave me the whopper of a headache!' I exclaimed 'have you been reading my mind this whole time!

'no, I have not' replied the professor 'I don't read peoples minds without permission. Ever. But there are certain thoughts I can hear if they are being projected loudly enough'

'oh'I said, and grinned sheepishly at logan, who just raised his eyebrow at me

So that's how I ended up spending the night in the x-mansion, as they referred to it. Later that evening (once I no longer felt like I was gonna hurl every time I sat up) I met the rest of the x-men. There was an absolutely gorgeous guy … Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, his spectacular girlfriend Rogue (bitch) … well, I cant say that, she's really nice too, a couple blue furry guys named Beast (Hank McCoy) and Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), Ororo Munroe (Storm) and I was assured there were others, who were away on missions, or had different lives now, etc. I also met a few of the students, there was Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), Husk (Paige Guthrie), and Jonothan Starsmore (Chamber). I seemed to be between their ages, not quite old enough to be an X-man, but a year older than the oldest student. Not that it makes that much of a difference. During that time I also had a long discussion with Professor Xavier, mostly about how the school was run, what subjects I was interested in, and how much control I already had over my mutation. Here, if not in other areas, he was impressed by the amount of practicing I had already been doing. Afterwards I was shown to a guest room where I then fell prompty asleep. Normally I have trouble sleeping in a new place, but at that time I was pretty damn exhausted.


End file.
